Pippin Musings
by Orangeblossom Took1
Summary: Vignettes of Pippin's life after the events of Lord of the Rings *completed*
1. Pippin Musing 1: Anniversary

Very Early Spring 1425  
  
Pippin Musing 1: Anniversary  
  
As Pippin lay on his bed in the moonlight he marveled at how one day or even one moment could change your life forever. This day was the anniversary of one of the blackest days of his life and Pippin thought back on the events of six years before, which remained clearly etched in his mind, and how he and Merry had spent the day sharing their memories of that time.  
  
He and Merry had planned to spend the day together and pay tribute to the memory of the man who so valiantly attempted to save them from the uruk- hai. They spoke of Boromir as they rode slowly along the path, which had the first of the wild violets blooming alongside it. Pippin told Merry he wished Boromir could know that they survived and that one of the hobbits he had sacrificed himself for (and Pippin had to admit to himself he sat up a little straighter on his pony when he said this) had played an important part in saving Boromir's younger brother. Merry smiled gravely and told him that he did not know why but he thought Boromir's spirit somehow knew these things.  
  
They had gone on riding for some time without saying much when they passed a tree that was festooned with white flowers, although no leaves as of yet, which stood over a particularly beautiful stream. They decided to stop here and have lunch before returning to their respective homes. As they sat on the bank and ate Pippin noticed that some of the little white flowers had fallen into the swirling water and were being rapidly carried downstream. Pippin stopped eating and his eyes started to fill. Merry put his arm around Pippin's shoulder and, for a time, neither of them said anything but listened for a time to the gurgling stream, the wind, and the passing birds. 


	2. Pippin Musing 2: More than mushrooms

Pippin Musing 2: More Than Mushrooms  
  
The Shire Early Fall 1425 (Shire reckoning)  
  
Pippin almost danced on his way home. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so happy. He felt as if he cold fly like one of the great eagles and touch the sky. He grinned and realized he couldn't wait to tell Merry that he now understood why his friend could often talk of nothing except Estella. He was happy his friend was having such a successful courtship with Miss Estella Bolger but had been annoyed at how much it seemed to occupy Merry. Well, today's events showed him how quickly and completely the lightening-bolt of romance could strike a hobbit.  
  
That morning, Peregrin was looking for mushrooms, not hobbit-lasses. It had been such a warm day, as warm as any in summer, and here had been a soft, steady rain two days before that gave him hope of finding mushrooms. Mushroom hunting was certainly a more pleasurable exercise than having tea with yet another girl who was either greedy for the Took gold, vapid, or both. The latest and most persistent was both. She would have to ensnare some other hobbit with her flaxen curls, which were not such a rarity anymore. With an eye to avoiding husband-hunting ladies, Pippin took a sack for the mushrooms, some bread and cheese for his lunch, and stepped out into the golden day.  
  
The hunt exceeded his expectations. The rich, loamy floor of the woods harbored many mushrooms and the trees, whose leaves were beginning to turn shades of gold and russet, scraped a deep blue sky. The quality of the light, the color of some of the leaves, and many of fall flowers that bloomed in the clearings, were all golden and Pippin found many mushrooms.  
  
His greatest discover was not mushrooms and had come on his way home. After filling his sack, he wandered still further because of the loveliness of the day. He eventually returned to the path and was passing a medium-sized smial where a small, dark-haired hobbit-maid was cutting spent blooms off roses bushes that reveled in a bumper-crop of fall blooms and dropping them into a basket at her feet when his ears began to twitch and he heard a shrill, all-too-familiar voice coming from further down the path. Peregrin, son of Paladin, hero of the Shire dove behind the largest of the rose bushes. The hobbit-maid quirked an eyebrow at him and came closer.  
  
"Master Peregrin," she said, "Are you hiding from someone?"  
  
He turned pink from his cheeks to the tips of his ears and replied, "I would rather face orcs than the girl who is walking toward us."  
  
She smiled but did not give him away. After the gilt-haired disturbance passed, he found out that the dark-haired maid's name was Diamond of Long- Cleeve and she knew him although he didn't remember seeing her before, although he was sure he would have noticed such remarkable eyes. She was five years younger than him and had been in her early tweens when he left on the quest. Her mother called that lunch was ready and she should invite Pippin in because there was plenty to go around. Pippin fried up some of the mushrooms as an addition to the lunch and gave some to the ladies. This still left plenty for his father. He spent a pleasant time talking with Diamond and her mother and went home thinking about Diamond's golden eyes. He would have to invite her to have dinner with his father. He would have Merry and Estella over too and make a party of it. 


	3. Pippin Musing 3: Pippin's Wedding

Pippin's Musing 3: wedding day  
  
The Shire, the Fourth Age, Late Spring 1427 (shire reckoning)  
  
Peregrin Took was in a reflective mood. Since the events of the War of the Ring, he had become a great deal more thoughtful and today was a day most bachelor-hobbits were supposed to dread but he did not fear marrying Diamond and there were times she made him feel as light-hearted and foolish as he was before the war. There were still times he woke up panicked from a dream of which he could remember nothing but a heavy weight crushing him, the clang of metal on metal, and the smell of blood. However, today was a beautiful spring day in the Shire and, as he gazed out the round window of his room in the Great Smial of the Tooks at the trees and flowers, his thoughts wandered to those who couldn't be at his wedding and those that still remained.  
  
His father and his friends Merry and Sam were here. Paladin was becoming increasingly frail, worn out before the usual time for his long-lived family, but he was here and still well enough to enjoy the occasion. Sam had become so much more than Pippin thought he would. He was still amazed at the immense, quiet strength of the hobbit that had healed the scars inflicted upon the land by the invaders. Merry would be an able Master of Buckland when his time came and he was so happy with Estella. Pippin hoped he would be as good a husband to Diamond. He and Merry no longer pulled pranks together but they still spent as much time as possible with each other. He would miss his cousin's gentle presence and Gandalf's fireworks. He dearly wished Frodo and the old wizard could be here. Almost six years had passed since they left with the elves but his memories of them, especially Frodo, remained undimmed.  
  
Diamond's love filled the hollow places in his heart. She was lovely hobbit- lass. Her dark curls and golden-brown eyes captivated him from the first time he saw her in her parent's garden with a basket full of roses. He smiled and thought that she would soon be planting roses around the Great Smial. Many a hobbit-lass tried to attract the Took heir but the quiet, golden-eyed Diamond succeeded where flashier lasses failed.  
  
His father's voice startled him out of his reverie. Paladin, looking tired but happy, entered the room.  
  
"Pippin," said Paladin Took, "What are you doing, son? They are waiting for you."  
  
"I'm coming father," said Pippin.  
  
He walked into the spring sunshine with his father, looking forward to the party and his future with Diamond. 


	4. Pippin Musing 4: Birthday

Pippin Musing 4: Birthday The Shire Early Spring 1431 (Shire reckoning)  
  
Today was his son's first birthday and no child could have been more wanted or loved. Although he and Diamond had been married for just under four years, they had the example of Sam and Rose before them. The mayor and his wife just had their fifth child, another little golden-haired girl. Pippin was grateful for his one child and the fact that his father was still here to enjoy little Faramir. Paladin weakened every year but clung to life with Tookish tenacity.  
  
There had been two, heartbreaking miscarriages before Faramir. The second one happened late in Diamond's pregnancy and hurt his wife both physically and emotionally. He spent many hours holding her, stroking her hair, and feeding her. He had been wild with worry when she became pregnant again. He gathered mushrooms and berries for her to eat and wouldn't let her do any sort of work. She smiled and shook her head as if to say he was worrying for nothing but let him pamper her. The pregnancy and birth actually went very easily and, a year ago today, Pippin was presented with a little boy with his mother's golden eyes and named him Faramir, after the prince he saved from the mad Denenthor.  
  
Diamond baked a beautiful cake and they were waiting for their guests to arrive when he heard a baby's happy squeal coming from the kitchen. Pippin went to see what was going on. Faramir somehow had upset the flour and was playing in the powdery mess. Diamond, laughing, picked him up just as Pippin walked in the kitchen. Pippin grinned, hugged them together, and swung his little family around the kitchen in a dance before getting the broom and dustpan. 


	5. Pippin Musing 5: A Winter Passing

Pippin Musing 5: A Winter Passing The Shire Late Winter 1434 (Shire Reckoning)  
  
Pippin stared uncomprehending at the gray day turning into an impenetrable black night. He was sitting in a large chair before a fire in the smial but he did not feel the warmth of the blaze. He felt as if he had turned to stone like one of Bilbo's trolls. He could not believe his father was gone and cursed himself because he should have known the end was near. Paladin had become weaker with every winter for years and, just a month ago, Pippin saw death on his father's face one night when Pippin had been going to get Faramir a cup of water and Paladin was awakened by a pain in his side. Yesterday his father clutched his arm and collapsed in the great room.  
  
He would be Thane now. That was not as incomprehensible as it would have seemed before the quest. His adventures taught him a lot and he had taken over most of his father's duties but he would miss Paladin's counsel. The responsibilities were now his alone and there was no one to help him. Maybe he could ask Merry for advice as he had done so often in the past.  
  
Since then, Peregrin sat in a trance in this chair and watched the drizzle. It had been an unusually warm and wet winter, with more rain than snow. This past week had been particularly warm. The misting rain and the fog were thick and shrouded both sound and light. He felt a small, warm weight on his lap. His father's little brown-striped cat, Berry, curled up in his lap and began to purr. He scratched the cat on his head and the little animal purred even louder. Then four-year-old Faramir came into the room and curled up in the chair beside him.  
  
"Daddy," he asked, "Momma said you didn't come to dinner because you miss Grandpa Paladin."  
  
Pippin managed to choke out a yes and put an arm around his son, pulling the child to him. Both the cat in his lap and little Faramir smelled clean and warm and he remembered sitting next to his father in this chair while Paladin read to him-. The heat from the fire finally began to make an impression and both he and Faramir went to sleep. He woke up some time later when Diamond came in the room, kissed him on the forehead, and took Faramir off to bed. Her voice startled him when she came back in the room.  
  
"Pippin," she said gently, "You will feel better if you get a good night's sleep.  
  
He kissed her and agreed. That night he dreamed of spring and, in the morning, he woke to crisp, blue skies. 


	6. Pippin Musing 6: Apples falling close to...

Pippin Musing 6: Apples falling close to trees The Shire High Summer 1442 (Shire reckoning)  
  
Pippin lay on the grass listening to the hum of the honeybees and looked at his twelve-year-old son reading in the sun by Diamond's rose garden. He marveled, not for the first time, at what an amazing person Faramir was the best of both his parents and worthy of his name. The child was actually a lot like his cousin Frodo and looking at his son brought back fond memories.  
  
Like Frodo, Faramir was graceful and fine-featured. Faramir eyes were also startling but they were Diamond's rich golden-brown, not Frodo's summer-sky blue, and the boy's curly hair was only a shade darker than his eyes. Little hobbit-maids would be coming after that one soon enough. Pippin chuckled to himself and thought that the girls would have to knock the lad's book out of his hand's first.  
  
Pippin had not been a quiet, scholarly sort of child but Diamond had. Although he was an only child, Faramir was kind to the smaller children he encountered and would sometimes read to them. It made Pippin proud to see his son doing this and he remembered Frodo reading to him and telling him stories. Pippin grinned and thought that Faramir would abandon his books for a swordplay lesson, particularly if "Uncle Merry" were involved. Estella and Diamond would drink tea and watch the three of them, laughing at their antics when the lessons devolved into horseplay.  
  
Pippin could also see himself in Faramir. The lad was scholarly but not grave and shared a wry sense of humor with his parents. The shape of his son's chin and nose also reminded Pippin of himself. The boy may have been more rambunctious if he had a like-minded partner in crime and had not had an attentive mother like Diamond. Pippin wondered if he himself would have gotten in quite as much trouble if he hadn't lost his mother at such a young age and had Merry there to play with. Oh well, he smiled ruefully. It had been fun at the time. If Merry and Estella had a son, fatherhood might be a little more difficult than it was but it would have been nice to see the children playing together. Faramir did have the Gamgee children to play with and they were a well-behaved lot. He turned his head when he heard Diamond's voice and saw that she had a large yellow rose tucked behind one ear.  
  
"It is such a nice day, I thought we would have tea outside," she said.  
  
He replied, "Excellent suggestion, sweetheart. Faramir and I will help you."  
  
Faramir, hearing them, said, "Did you make blackberry pie, Mother?"  
  
Diamond smiled and told him she had but that would be saved for "Uncle" Merry and "Aunt" Estella who were coming for dinner that night. They would have bread, cheese, and fresh plums for their tea. The small hobbit family linked arms, went to gather the tea things, and lay on the picnic blanket drinking in the sunshine. 


	7. Pipping Musing 7: Passages

Pippin Musing 7: Passages The Shire Late Fall 1463  
  
Pippin sat at a long table in the great smial that was heavily laden with food and decorations and sipped a glass of his best old win yards. As he greeted his son's wedding guests, he reflected on the passing years and what a good match Faramir was making with Goldilocks Gamgee.  
  
The decades since the war had been fruitful ones for the Shire but the most wonderful and miraculous event was Merry and Estella's late-in-life son, Saradoc II. Faramir had been almost fourteen when young Saradoc was born in late 1443 and treated the younger hobbit as a little brother. The elder Brandybucks doted on their handsome blond, blue-eyed lad.  
  
Pippin smiled at a guest and thought that there was a time when a Took marrying a Gamgee would have been unthinkable or at least highly unusual but those days were long past. Even if Sam had not been made mayor or the heir to Bag End, Pippin knew him for a hero and had a great respect for the six-time mayor and his sensible wife.  
  
The younger Gamgees were the most admirable hobbits and had been Faramir's childhood companions. Pippin almost laughed out loud at the memory of his six-year-old son telling him he would marry Goldilocks when he grew up. Now, in the year of his coming-of-age, Faramir was fulfilling his infant promise. Goldilocks was a lively, hard-working girl who had gilt curls and her father's kind, brown eyes. She also had Sam's affinity for gardening. Goldilocks and Diamond had dried many of the late summer/early fall flowers for wedding decorations.  
  
The time had passed for fresh flowers this year but the weather had been relatively mild and the trees brightened the landscape with shades of red, orange, and gold. It was a cool, clear night and, when Pippin saw Merry and Sam slipping outside, he followed them. The three middle-aged hobbits gazed up at the stars and the luminous moon. They smoked their pipes while speaking of their children and the adventures of their own youth.  
  
They had not been outside long when their wives came to get them and scolded them for leaving the party. A small band, which included Saradoc on the drum, started playing and Pippin danced with Diamond and grinned when he saw that Rosie still had to drag a blushing Sam onto the dance floor. Merry and Estella swirled around in a skillful fashion. Faramir, looking handsome and very happy, danced with a beaming Goldilocks.  
  
It seemed like a very short time indeed when the band played its last song and the guests began to depart in the moonlight. When the last guest left, he remarked to Diamond that they really had raised an excellent son and the party had been a rousing success. She smiled and agreed. As he drifted off to sleep, Thane Peregrin could still smell the dried roses and feel a warm, internal glow from the old win wards. 


	8. Pippin Musing 8: Generations

Pippin Musing 8: Generations The Shire late spring 1472 (Shire reckoning)  
  
As Pippin looked at his age-spotted hands, he reflected on the new and boisterous generation of Tooks he and Diamond spent the day with. It was much more fun to be a grandfather than a father, even to as excellent a child as Faramir had been. He could spoil his four grandchildren and the only consequence to himself would be a mild lecture from Goldilocks. He smiled at the thought and at the antics of the children. It was wonderful that he and Diamond, who had only one single child, were blessed with a quartet of lively youngsters who were intelligent and had distinct personalities.  
  
Lila, the oldest, would turn nine at mid-winter and reminded Peregrin of stories he had heard about his great-great aunt Belladonna. The lass had the longest, straightest, blackest hair in the Shire and eyes so dark they were almost black. She was also fearless and would confront dogs, larger children, or anyone else she felt was doing wrong.  
  
Blossom, the second child, just turned seven was a motherly little thing and a Gamgee to the core of her being. She followed Goldilocks and Diamond around the gardens and always insisted on helping them tend the roses. Her greatest joy was to line up her two younger siblings and her dolls and tell them stories. She had brown curls and eyes to match.  
  
The third child and only boy, Berilac, did not really look like either of his parents. Pippin thought the lad resembled his aunt Esmerelda in coloring. Beri had gray eyes and dark blond hair that, like Lila's, was straighter than any hobbit had a right to. The lad, although only five, had an uncanny ability to be the center of any group and led older as well as younger children in play.  
  
Little Peony, who was only three, was the favorite of everyone, including her siblings. She had wavy, golden-brown curls and Diamond's golden eyes. The lass started speaking in complete sentences very early and loved being read to. She was a dreamy, introspective child and could sometimes startle with the profound things she said.  
  
That day, Pippin and Diamond took the children on a walk through the sun- dappled woods of Tuckborough to give Faramir and Goldilocks a day of rest. They walked through the deep green woods under a sky that was an intense shade of cobalt. He and Diamond answered the children's questions about the plants and animals they saw. Lila begged Pippin for a swordplay lesson. He laughed and said he would teach her if her parents agreed when he felt a tug on his sleeve and looked down to see Peony.  
  
"Grandpa Pip, Grandpa Pip," she said, "I dreamed about the talking trees last night. Will you tell me their story again?"  
  
He laughed and said, "Ents, dear. They like to be called Ents. There are none in these woods but I will tell you the story again as soon as we stop for lunch."  
  
He picked up the lass and put her on his shoulders. They stopped for lunch in a clearing by a stream that had blue and lavender irises blooming on the banks and pink wild roses on the edge of the woods. After lunch, Peony climbed in his lap and he told her the story of Treebeard again while Lila and Berilac mock-fought with sticks and Diamond showed Blossom how to make a daisy chain. 


	9. Pippin Musing 9: Namarie

Pippin Musing 9: Namarie The Shire early summer 1484 (Shire reckoning)  
  
Pippin sat in front of Diamond's rose-covered grave bathed in the last rays of the sun. He had been dreading this day since the spring, when Merry got the letter from King Eomer, but he knew it was his duty to go. In his mind and heart he still felt young and he was a hale, Tookish 94 but Merry was 102 and his health was fading. If they did not leave now, they never would.  
  
He sighed. Merry was right. They had to go. Eomer would be gone soon. They had made a trip to the human prince Faramir's deathbed but this time he and Merry would not return to the Shire. He mourned the strength of his youth, when travel was not so wearying but it would ill befit Peregrin, Knight of Gondor, and Meriadoc, Rider of Rohan, to be absent from Eomer's deathbed.  
  
What did he really have left in the Shire? Sam left after Rose died. Merry's Estella passed away five years before and Diamond just two years ago. His son would be an admirable Thane but, as he looked at the white roses on his wife's grave, his resolve failed.  
  
He did not want to leave his grandchildren. He knew he would never see them or the Shire again. Peony, who was fifteen, had taken it the hardest and had been going about with tears in her eyes for days. He hated to cause the lass so much pain. Lila, who would be twenty-one in the wintertime, wanted to go with them as their bodyguard and nineteen-year-old Blossom baked them bread for their journey. Berilac, who was seventeen, organized a farewell party for him.  
  
He was grieved to leave his son but Faramir was middle-aged now and had been assisting him very ably in his duties as Thane for years. Pippin was still capable of being Thane but he felt his son was very capable and needed this opportunity to prove himself before he too was elderly.  
  
Pippin dreamed of watching Diamond cut roses in a summer garden so many years ago while the sun sank below the horizon and the blue light that comes before true dark enveloped him. His reverie was broken when he felt a touch that was soft as dandelion fluff on his arm. It was Peony. The girl had the blotchy face and red, swollen eyes of someone who has been weeping hard for a long time. She sat next to him on the bench but it took her some time to speak.  
  
"Grandpa Pip," she said in a quaking voice that was ready to break into tears, "will I never see you again?"  
  
He drew her close and said, "Lass, lass. All things must come to an end. I have a sacred obligation to old friends. Queen Arwen has had one hobbit- maid at court. Maybe I can convince her to have another. It may not come to pass and you are still a little young yet. I will try and hope for it because I will greatly miss you."  
  
Her sobs subsided into sniffles and they held each other until long after the sky darkened to ebony and fireflies danced above their heads in the soft night air. 


	10. Pippin Musing 10: The Last

Pippin Musing 10: The Last/Silence in the White City Minas Tirith winter 1499  
  
Pippin woke early and noticed the pristine snow that blanketed the White City and reflected the first rosy rays of what promised to be a brilliant winter sun. He thought about his many long years in Minas Tirith. For six of them, he had been the only hobbit in Gondor's capital. Merry was laid in Rath Dinen before they had been there a year. That had been so hard to bear. He was the last of the Fellowship's hobbits still walking this Middle Earth.  
  
"Fool of a Took!" He whispered to himself, "You were the youngest and should have known you would be the last."  
  
He was so grateful for the letters from home and especially for the extended visit by his grandchildren and Merry's son, Saradoc II, after Merry died as well as visits from Gimli and Legolas. He had though he would never see his grandchildren again. He thought often of returning to the Shire but it would seem so empty without Merry, Diamond, Frodo, Sam, and all the rest of his departed loved ones. Their absence left a hole even his grandchildren couldn't fill.  
  
He sighed. Who knew grandchildren could cause more worry than children? The copious letters he received from home told him Berilac and Lila were a great help to their father. His wild oldest granddaughter tucked her black hair under a helmet and helped Faramir patrol Tuckborough. Berilac had a head for business and helped out in that area. Blossom just recently married a respectable young Bolger. He hoped they would find happiness in the lives they chose.  
  
The most wonderful thing was when Queen Arwen agreed to have Peony at court. His youngest granddaughter was a great comfort to him. She was not as well suited to like at court as Sam's daughter, Elanor, had been but if court events and parties intimidated her, she gloried in the libraries of the great city.  
  
Peony also spent a great deal of time with Calmacil, the human prince Faramir's youngest grandson. Like Faramir, Calmacil had an introspective, scholarly character. The lad also looked almost exactly as Pippin remembered his grandfather. Cal and Peony shared a love of books and were the same age. Pippin was glad his granddaughter found a good friend but he feared for her gentle heart. Peony was thirty now and would come of age soon enough, although he doubted he would see that.  
  
He thought there was something he should give her. Pippin got up from his bed and retrieved a leather volume wrapped in sky-blue silk from the chest at the foot of the bed. He went to his desk, wrote a note for Peony, and left both the note and the book on the desk.  
  
When Pippin turned back toward his bed he suddenly felt the most intense headache and dropped to the floor. Peony, who had insisted on being in the next room must have heard because he could hear her footsteps and then her shouting his name as if from a long way off. As Peony's voice faded, he thought he could hear the sound Merry's laughter becoming clearer, along with the smell of Diamond's roses. The last thing he thought he could hear was the voice of his mother Eglantine, who he could barely remember.  
  
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In a room in the palace of the White City a king bowed his head and silver tears streaked the fair face of an elf. Nothing could be heard but the hoarse sobs of a dwarf and the hiccupping sobs of a desolate-looking hobbit maid clutching a book wrapped in blue silk. Outside soft gray clouds rolled in and large white snowflakes covered the city in silence. 


End file.
